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Brush your teeth at your peril: snake slithers out of bathroom drain

An escaped snake in a Toronto apartment building was first spotted slithering out of a tenant’s sink.

Benjamin Schorer, who lives in a Wellesley St. highrise, said he shot this video Nov. 2 after a metre-long snake came up from this bathroom sink drain. (SUBMITTED VIDEO IMAGE)

By Jayme PoissonStaff Reporter

Thu., Nov. 4, 2010

A word to Samuel L. Jackson: In Toronto, snakes prefer drains.

Wiping down his bathroom sink Tuesday morning, Benjamin Schorer claims that all of a sudden, a metre-long snake slithered out of the overflow drain and stretched out on his vanity.

“I was in shock: ‘Is this for real!?’” said the resident of 100 Wellesley St. E, a downtown high-rise with more than 20 storeys.

“I’m extremely phobic. I haven’t gotten nearly any sleep in two days.”

The 25-year-old I.T. student at George Brown, who has dabbled in acting, worried no one would believe him, so he filmed a quick video on his iPhone. Then he ran downstairs, still in his pyjamas, to alert his apartment building’s office.

“At first they looked at me like I was nuts,” Schorer said.

By the time he came back up with reinforcements, the snake was gone. It’s been missing ever since.

“We looked for it and they told me not to worry about it. They said it was probably somebody’s pet.”

But Schorer can’t stop worrying. “What if the snake was poisonous?” he said, adding it could have bitten one of his two cats. Simba and Jericho.

He took research into his own hands and emailed the video to the Toronto Zoo, who assured him the snake wasn’t venomous. They identified the snake as an albino California King, with orange and white markings and a small head.

Dangerous or not, Schorer is not happy. He wants to know why building management isn’t putting him up in a hotel.

“It could be in the walls of the building for all I know. It could have gone back in the drain or could even be in my apartment somewhere,” he said.

Trish MacPherson, a spokesperson for CAP REIT, the company that owns and manages the building, said they’ve been advised by Animal Services to “wait for another sighting.”

“But we’re trying to be proactive and work with animal service experts to see what we can do to draw it out,” she said, adding that while the situation isn’t dangerous “it’s still disturbing.”

A memo from CAP REIT posted outside the elevators advises tenants to be on the lookout.

“I know it’s not venomous but it’s still creepy,” said Travis Bergmann who lives across the hall from Schorer. “I don’t want to live in a building with snakes.”

John Mowat, an employee at Vaughan Reptilia said people shouldn’t “freak out.”

“They’re kind of shy snakes,” he said. “It’s not going to bite anyone or harm anyone.”

This isn’t the first time in recent history a snake has caused upheaval in Toronto. In 2007, a venomous Egyptian cobra that was kept illegally by a man in his Church St. home got loose. The incident forced the evacuation of five tenants from an adjoining house.

After an intensive five-month search, the snake was believed to be dead, but its body was never found.

“I was the victim,” said Philip Belanger, who owns the semi-detached home next door, adding the ordeal cost him between $80,000 and $100,000 in lost income and property expenses. New tenants are now renting the house.

The situation at 100 Wellesley St. won’t come to that. Some tenants are even thinking about the snake’s well-being.

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